
Glass 
Book. 



C(«pghtN". 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. ^ 



EDITED BY HENRY SUZZALLO 

PROFESSOR OF THE PHILOSOPHY OF EDUCATION 
TEACHERS COLLEGE, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY 



INDIVIDUALITY 



BY 



EDWARD L. THORNDIKE 

PROFESSOR OF EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY 
TEACHERS COLLEGE, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY 




HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 

BOSTON, NEW YORK AND CHICAGO 



0^ 



v"^X« 



COPYRIGHT, 191 1, BY HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 



ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 



CI.A2J)38<,r 



CONTENTS 

Editor's Introduction v 

I. The Nature of Individual Differ- 
ences I 

II. The Causes of Individual Differences 29 
III. The Significance of Individual Dif- 
ferences 49 

Outline 53 



EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION 

The teaching profession is showing signs of a 
somewhat violent reaction against the uniform- 
ity of method that for so long clutched and 
mechanized the schools. Long before teachers 
realized the deadening effects of uniformity, 
there had been many protests from outside the 
teaching fold ; but they had availed little in fo- 
cussing professional attention. Parents had no- 
ticed that vigor and freshness were departing 
from the teaching in our public schools. Youth 
at high schools and colleges had in their own 
way filed their protest by turning from the un- 
appealing work of classrooms to affairs of their 
own invention, to school sports and sociability. 
But the professional consciousness was not 
deeply penetrated until the teachers themselves 
were caught in the iron machinery of their own 
making. When the supervision of teachers be- 
came as inflexible and as unindividual as the 
teaching of children, the problem of individu- 



EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION 

ality in education became an acute professional 
one. Particularly was this true in large city 
school systems, where the mere bigness of the 
situation obscured both the individual teacher 
and the individual child. 

Of course there have been other forces con- 
tributing to this awakening to the need of con- 
serving and developing individuality. Great 
institutional movements are far too complex 
to be explained simply, — one set of forces sel- 
dom operates without assistance from many 
others. 

The growing belief that the education of all 
children is a public duty initiated difficulties 
that forced attention to the need of individual 
treatment of children. The schools of an older 
generation took care of a selected group. Those 
children to whom a more or less formal and ab- 
stract intellectual life appealed went to school 
and remained ; the others either did not enter 
school at all or soon left for more congenial em- 
ployment. The traditional methods of school- 
room procedure were adapted only to a picked 
lot of children. The effect of compulsory educa- 
vi 



EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION 

tion upon the school was therefore sweeping. 
All varieties of children were compelled to at- 
tend a school the traditional methods of which 
fitted only a few. The maladjustments became 
apparent. The old uniform methods broke down 
before the needs of a new, enlarged, and more 
varied population. Children were eliminated 
from school or retarded in their school careers 
to such a degree as seriously to indict the school 
system. The cry for individual adjustment be- 
came a shibboleth among the reformers ; and it 
found a ready echo in the city teacher who found 
herself becoming a pedagogical mechanic under 
the uniform standards imposed from above. 

The growth of cities also emphasized exist- 
ing maladjustments. The heterogeneous school 
populations of large industrial and commercial 
centres embrace a wide distribution of eco- 
nomic groups and classes. The evidence of so 
great variation in pupils in the schools of these 
cities helped the school men of the country to 
realize that variety is one of the chief charac- 
teristics of human nature. To be sure the ob- 
served differences in individuals were often due 
vii 



EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION 

more to environment than to original causes, and 
were frequently more apparent than real; the 
effect, however, was even more pronounced than 
if the teachers had possessed an accurate, scien- 
tific view of natural and fundamental variations 
among men. The call for special schools, smaller 
classes, and specialized methods of teaching was 
prompt, though not always intelligent. The city 
school system afforded an easy administrative 
opportunity for handling such special classes. 
In a congested population there would be 
enough deaf and dumb, or cripples, or juvenile 
delinquents, or truants, or tubercular children to 
warrant the establishment of special schools or 
classes. Hence the large city easily furnished ex- 
amples of ways of providing for better adjust- 
ment to individuality, and became the initiator, 
as well as the pattern, of new movements of this 
kind. 

It is probable, too, that the child-study move- 
ment in education gave assistance to the other 
factors that were breaking up the uniform 
methods of the traditional school. It took the 
attention off certain ready-made conceptions as 
viii 



EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION 

to what the human mind is, and turned it toward 
the study of the children themselves. The con- 
crete acts of many children, observed under all 
sorts of conditions, could not help but stimu- 
late the growing belief that childhood has in- 
finite variety. 

As a result of these major forces, and of some 
other minor ones at work in our professional 
thought, the reaction against the blight of uni- 
formity in teaching has deepened. It has ex- 
pressed itself positively in the demand for ad- 
ministrative and instructional means that will 
produce an increased regard for individuality. 
For the most part this revolution — for it has 
been nothing less — in point of view, was a re- 
bellion of common sense against an obvious 
wrong. It moved in the right direction, but, as 
is the case when common sense is the sole 
guide, it advanced without much refinement of 
either knowledge or methods. 

To escape from the tyranny of traditional no- 
tions as to what constitutes an average child 
under average conditions, and to reach the be- 
lief — general and vague though it be — that 
ix 



EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION 

schools must be respecters of individuality, is 
surely a sign of progress. But our pupils will 
never reap the full benefit of this changed point 
of view until we know specifically to what extent 
individuals vary and what are the causes of this 
variation ; as well as the particular practical im- 
plications of these scientific truths. 

Unfortunately the truths of such a complex 
problem as that of human individuality are now 
only in the process of scientific reduction. In so 
far as they exist and may be presented in re- 
stricted compass, they are summarized in the 
volume here presented. But this contribution of 
Professor Thorndike's is significant for more 
than its incidental summary of known facts ; for 
it estabhshes a point of view and indicates a 
safe method of approach to this intricate study 
of human nature. With ingenious clarity and 
brilliant suggestiveness, coupled with scientific 
caution and accuracy, the author has given us 
the fundamental modes by which uniformities 
and variations are to be perceived in human 
nature ; has stated their general and specific 
causes ; and has pointed out their meaning for so- 

X 



EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION 

cial policy. Even the casual reader of this mono- 
graph cannot fail to appreciate its bearings upon 
much that passes as truth in both popular belief 
and professional theory. 



INDIVIDUALITY 



THE NATURE OF INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES 

The life of a man is a double series — a series of 
effects produced in him by the rest of the world, 
and a series of effects produced in that world by 
him. A man's make-up or nature equals his ten- 
dencies to be influenced in certain ways by the 
world and to react in certain ways to it. To de- 
scribe even one man's intellect and character 
fully, at even any one time, it would be neces- 
sary to list all the world's happenings that he 
might possibly encounter, and to state in each 
case how he would feel and think and act in 
response to that happening. 

If we could thus adequately describe each of a 
million human beings, — if, for each one, we could 
prophesy just what the response would be to every 
possible situation of life, — the million men would 
be found to differ widely. Probably no two out 



INDIVIDUALITY 

of the million would be so alike in mental nature 
as to be indistinguishable by one who knew their 
entire natures. Each has an individuality which 
marks him off from other men. Each has not 
only a mind, the mind of the human species, but 
also his own, specialized, particular, readily dis- 
tinguishable mind. Even in bodily nature, in- 
deed, men differ so much that it would be hard 
to find, amongst a million, two whose features are 
just alike, who are equally susceptible to every 
disease, who have identical bodily habits. The 
differences in intellect and character are far 
greater. 

We may study a human being in respect to his 
common humanity, or in respect to his individ- 
uality. In other words, we may study the fea- 
tures of intellect and character which are common 
to all men, to man as a species ; or we may study 
the differences in intellect and character which 
distinguish individual men. 

The study of the facts and laws applicable to 
all men by virtue of their common humanity 
gives education its fundamental rules for the con- 
trol of changes in intellect and character. The 

2 



NATURE OF INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES 

study of the facts and laws of individual differ- 
ences enables us to apply these principles economi- 
cally in the case of each individual whom we seek 
to educate. 

In studying individual differences, it is cus- 
tomary to reduce the infinitude of tendencies to 
think and feel and act in certain ways in response 
to the varied situations which life offers, to the 
more general, and so fewer, tendencies which 
the psychologist calls abilities, interests, habits, 
qualities of mind, or mental traits. Thus the 
hundreds of connections between the situations 
represented by all the possible problems in ad- 
dition and the responses represented by all their 
solutions, are reduced to the one trait, ''ability 
to add." Thus the many inborn connections be- 
tween, on the one hand, seeing and touching 
blocks, sand, strings, wire, stones, water, and 
other material objects, and on the other hand 
examining, poking, pulling, putting together, 
taking apart, forming and re-forming those ob- 
jects, are comprised in the one trait, " the instinct 
of constructiveness " or **the interest in manipu- 
lation." Thus by such a term as "memory for fig- 
3 



INDIVIDUALITY 

ures " we refer to the permanence of many con- 
nections, — the thought of a battle with its date, 
the thought of a person with his address or tele- 
phone number, the thought of a city with its num- 
ber of inhabitants. 

Individuals are commonly considered as differ- 
ing in respect to such traits either quantitatively 
or qualitatively, either in degree or in kind. A 
quantitative difference exists when the individ- 
uals have different amounts of the same trait. 
Thus, "John is more attentive to his teacher than 
James is," "Mary loves dolls less than Lucy 
does," "A had greater devotion to his country 
than B had," are reports of quantitative differ- 
ences, of differences in the amount of what is 
assumed to be the same kind of thing. A qual- 
itative difference exists when some quality or trait 
possessed by one individual is lacking in the 
other. Thus, " Tom knows German, Dick does 
not," "A is artistic, B is scientific," " C is a man 
of thought, D is a man of action," are reports of 
the facts that Tom has some positive amount 
or degree of the trait "knowledge of German" 
while Dick has none of it, that A has some posi- 
4 



NATURE OF INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES 

tive amount of ability and interest in art while 
B has zero, whereas B has a positive amount of 
ability and interest in science, of which A has 
none, and so on. 

A qualitative difference in intellect or charac- 
ter is thus really a quantitative difference wherein 
one term is zero, or a compound of two or more 
quantitative differences. All intelligible differ- 
ences are ultimately quantitative. The difference 
between any two individuals, if describable at all, 
is described by comparing the amounts which A 
possesses of various traits with the amounts which 
B possesses of the same traits. In intellect and 
character, differences of kind between one in- 
dividual and another turn out to be definable, 
if defined at all, as compound differences of de- 
gree. 

If we could list all the traits, each representing 
some one characteristic of human nature, and 
measure the amount of each of them possessed 
by a man, we could represent his nature — read 
his character — in a great equation. John Smith 
would equal so many units of this, plus so 
many units of that, and so on. Such a mental 
5 



INDIVIDUALITY 

inventory would express his individuality conceiv- 
ably in its entirety and with great exactitude. 

No such list has been made for any man, much 
less have the exact amounts of each trait pos- 
sessed by him been measured. But in certain of 
the traits, many individuals have been measured ; 
and certain individuals have been measured, each 
in a large number of traits. I shall state first 
some of the more important results of the mea- 
surements of individual differences in the case of 
single traits, differences in the amount of the 
same kind of quality or thing. 

INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES IN SINGLE TRAITS 

It is useless to recount the traits in which men 
have been found to differ. For there is no trait 
in which they do not differ. Of course if the 
scale by which individuals are measured is very 
coarsely divided, their differences may be hidden. 
If, for example, ability to learn is measured on a 
scale with only two divisions, (i) ''ability to learn 
less than the average kitten can" and (2) " ability 
to learn more than the average kitten can," all 
men may be put in class two, just as if their 
6 



DIFFERENCES IN SINGLE TRAITS 

heights were measured on a scale of one yard, 
two yards, or three yards, nearly all men would 
alike be called two yards high. But whenever 
the scale of measurement is made fine enough, 
differences at once appear. 

Their existence is indubitable to any impartial 
observer. The early psychologists neglected or 
failed to see them precisely because the early 
psychology was partial. It believed in a typical 
or pattern mind, after the fashion of which all 
minds were created, and from which they differed 
only by rare accidents. It studied " the mind," 
and neglected individual minds. It studied " the 
will" of "man," neglecting the interests, im- 
pulses, and habits of actual men. 

The differences exist at birth and commonly 
increase with progress toward maturity. Individ- 
uality is already clearly manifest in children of 
school age. The same situation evokes widely 
differing responses ; the same task is done at 
differing speeds and with different degrees of 
success ; the same treatment produces differing 
results. 

There can be little doubt that of a thousand 
7 



IXDIMDU.\LITY 

-ye.L>:!^^ :i^:r" i: ::l"£:~. 5:::;r -.v:;; be four 
es IS ei^erre::;. -I^s::::^^, :..:;;:. ::urzi:e- 



I: Lzs ztt7. : -: among-st c':. -:r:. :f the 

5.1— t irt i:m .:'. t£iz:;:-d respects, of the same 
h : :.. r :ri_: r r i: i ; : .. : . advantages, some do in 
:- 1 51 :. t :.::.t ;i::::\ e; is n: ich, or do the same 

Ti- ■■ i; i .- -■■:.::':. i:;i :hr rxie::::: 'vhich in- 

c-:5:::i :;.■ : ::;r.i-::;-._; :ie Z;-V^:i;>;;.>; of the 
:ri:: :ii: is, the number of indi\'iduals possess- 
: _' T 1 : :. ^^ _ : t - : : it. For cxan:p le, the distribu- 
::::. :: 5:1:. :t ::'. Ar:-.er::i- : lys ten and a half 



1000 boys, there are : — 



Ler^-tt' !:•! l'i 1:3 centimetres tail, 2 boys. 

: : : : : 7 *• *" 5 boj-s. 

'* 117 •• 121 ** *• 25 boys. 

" 121 •' 125 •« " 97 boys. 

« 125 '• 129 « " 199 boys. 

« 129 '• 133 •< •• 255 boys. 
3 



DIFFIRI.NCIS IS SINGLE 



4 



eve 




Fici. The 



if *: 



we draw looolit:! 



to 113 



INDIVIDUALITY 

the number of individuals who possess that de- 
gree of the trait not by the number of lines, but 
by the size of an area. The previous table then 
becomes Figure 2. 

Such a figure is called the Surface of Distribu- 
tion of the trait. Such distribution tables or sur- 
faces are, so to speak, the language of individual 



Fig. 2. The Distribution of Stature of American Boys loj yrs. old, 
the relative frequencies being measured by area. 

psychology. They tell us what the *'type" or 
"norm" or common tendency is, how and how 
far individuals vary from the type, whether there 
are secondary or sub-types, how "abnormal" any 
given degree of the trait is, and the like. For in- 
stance, in the case of our illustration, it is clear 
10 



DIFFERENCES IN SINGLE TR.\ITS 

that there is one central tendency, the typical 
height for a boy of this age being about 133 cm. ; 
that slight individual variations from the type 
are very numerous, but that large variations 
from it are very rare; that the variations are 
continuous, individuals being found of every 
height from no cm. to over 150 cm. ; that a boy 
over 149 cm. tall at the age of ten and a half 
would be abnormal in the sense that he would 
occur only once in two hundred and fifty times, 
but would not be abnormal in the sense of being 
removed from ordinary children by a distinct 
gap. 

All thought about individual differences in 
single traits should be carried on in terms of 
such distribution tables or surfaces, each derived 
from the actual measurement of a large and 
representative group of individuals. It is mislead- 
ing to form opinions from casual observations of 
human nature without accurate measurements. 
For casual observation is struck by extreme, 
odd, exciting, and desired facts. It notes, for 
example, that two railroad wrecks occurred at 
the same day and hour, that it has not rained for 
II 



INDIVIDUALITY 

two months, that Walter Scott was thought dull 
as a boy, that the rule of the Republican party 
has greatly increased (or decreased) prosperity. 
It is misleading to judge from measurements 
of a few individuals. For their meaning can be 
rightly seen only by comparison with the total 
distribution in respect to the trait in question. 
In theory and in practice, we must think of an 
individual in any one trait not only as he is in 
and of himself, but as he is in relation to all men, 
— as one variation amongst others in the total 
distribution in respect to that trait. There is in- 
deed no one habit of thought about human na- 
ture more important for the understanding of 
individuality than the habit of thinking of the 
different amounts or degrees of each single qual- 
ity or trait as distances along a scale, and of 
men and women as distributed along that scale 
each at his proper point. 

The study of such distributions in the case of 
qualities of intellect and character, has brought to 
light two facts, both at variance with common opin- 
ion and both of importance for the practical con- 
trol of individuals by schools, laws, books, and the 

12 



DIFFERENCES IN SINGLE TRAITS 

like. First, the variations in any single trait are 
usually continuous. Second, the variations usually 
cluster around ojte and only one type. 

The continuity of variations appears in every 
trait that has so far been measured. Children 
rarely or never fall into distinct classes with 
gaps between, — bright, average, and dull, sane 
and insane, visualizers and non-visualizers, color- 
seeing and color-blind, and the like. On the con- 
trary, between the least and the greatest, the 
best and the worst, every degree is represented. 

The clustering around one type, though not 
perhaps as universal as the continuity of varia- 
tions, is also to be expected, save under certain 
special conditions in the causes that produce the 
trait.^ The true state of affairs is that shown by 
such distributions as those of Figure 3, not by 
such as those of Figure 4. We must not be mis- 
led, by the habit of thinking in words, into the 
false belief that individualities are grouped into 

1 The discussion of these causes is somewhat intricate and 
out of place in this brief exposition. The reader will find the 
essential facts in the author's Educational Psychology, pp. 1 50- 
170. 

13 



INDIVIDUALITY 

classes to fit those words. The usages of language 
are rarely competent to express the real fact of 
variations clustering around one type or mode 





A 



Fig. 3. Actual Distributions found in Mental Measurements. 

A. Reaction time of college freshmen. 

B. Efficiency in marking A's on a sheet of printed capitals ; 12-year- 
old boys. 

C. Memory of digits of women students. 

D. Efficiency in writing the opposites of words ; 12-year-old boys. 

and, as the variation increases, occurring in ever- 
diminishing frequency. That we call children 
good or bad does not mean that there are two 



DIFFERENCES IN SINGLE TRAITS 

types or modes of character. That the words "de- 
ficient," "normal," and "superior" are used of 
any trait is no proof that individuals in that trait 
show a separation into three groups, all in one 
group being much like one another and little like 
any of those in the other groups. 





ji 



L 




Fig. 4. Distributions around Several Distinct Types, such as are 
NOT commonly found to exist. 

We must learn to think of the degree or 
amount of any quality in an individual not by an 
adjective, but by a numerical amount. We must 
keep all men in one class or species, or divide 
them into two, three or more classes or species, 
according to the way they are in fact divided, not 
15 



INDIVIDUALITY 

according to rhetorical convenience. In the great 
majority of single traits, there is only one type or 
mode, so that any division into distinct classes 
according to the amount of the trait is arbitrary. 
The distribution being as in Figure 5, it is equally 
possible to divide individuals into two, three, four, 
five, six, seven, eight, or eight hundred classes; 
and for any given number of classes one may put 




Fig. 5. A Generalized Picture of the Form of Distribution to which 
the Actual Distributions approximate. 

the dividing lines in one place as well as another. 
Consequently classifications of individuals with 
respect to the amount of any single trait are al- 
most always useless if not misleading. The story 
is to be told, not by a series of names, but by a 
surface of distribution erected on a numerical 
scale. 

Turning again to Figure 3, one notes that all 
16 



DIFFERENCES IN SINGLE TRAITS 

the distributions there shown have, as a common 
feature, the great frequency of mediocrity and 
the rareness of both specially low and specially 
high degrees of a trait. Approximately this is the 
rule for the original individualities of mankind. 
Approximately this remains the rule for many 
traits throughout the course of life and its training. 
In many traits a very small difference in ability 
or attitude near the middle point of the scale in- 
cludes a great many individuals. This fact explains 
much in human behavior. For instance, social and 
political movements are often instigated by indi- 
viduals who are at the extremes of the scale with 
respect to some doctrine. But the deciding votes 
are almost always cast by individuals who have no 
very pronounced inclination in either direction. 
The attractiveness of some hero, the suggestive 
power of some battle-cry, an affront to the sense of 
fair play, a year of hard times, a moderate expendi- 
ture of money, even the mere desire for novelty, 
may turn the balance, because only a slight addi- 
tion to the attractiveness of one proposal is 
needed to move a great number of those near the 
point of neutrality. To overturn a large majority 

17 



INDIVIDUALITY 

requires only a small change in opinion. A slight 
improvement in teaching may make a misunder- 
stood point clear to a large percentage of the class. 

The facts that have been stated concerning the 
distribution of single traits teach, with respect to 
their educational control, that any method which 
is the best possible for those of one degree of a 
trait cannot be the best possible for all individu- 
als. Nor will two or three varieties of treatment 
suffice to educate all in the best way. Variations 
in human nature are wide and continuous, so that 
theoretically treatment also must vary much and 
continuously. 

It is not possible with ordinary facilities thus to 
give each individual in each trait the best possi- 
ble treatment, but knowledge of the amount and 
distribution of variations will prevent certain 
blunders. For example, a division into three 
groups is usually very much preferable to a divi- 
sion into two groups, but the gain by adding a 
fourth is far less. One change in school practice 
to make it more conformable to individual differ- 
ences is entirely practicable. Since the variations 
in any trait are so wide, a pupil should always be 
i8 



COMBINATIONS OF TRAITS 

measured, not only, as now, by his ability in com- 
parison with his fellows, but also by his improve- 
ment over his own past record. School marks 
should be on absolute as well as relative scales.^ 
A child should be given a measure of change as 
well as of present inferiority or superiority to 
some standard in the teacher's mind. 

INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES IN COMBINATIONS 
OF TRAITS 

The variety of human nature possible when 
one man is compared with others in respect to 
all possible traits is practically infinite. Even if 
man's nature included only five traits, a, b, c, d, 
and e, and even if each of these existed in only 
five degrees, i, 2, 3, 4, and 5, there could be over 
three thousand (3125, to be exact) varieties of 
men. With hundreds of traits, each represented 
in hundreds of degrees, the varieties possible are 
practically infinite. All the principles involved 
can, however, be understood in a simplified case 
such as that of the five traits, each appearing in 

1 For a description of such an absolute scale see the author's 
'* Handwriting," Teachers College Record, March, 1910. 

19 



INDIVIDUALITY 

five degrees. In the simple case any one individ- 
ual would be represented by an equation such 
as : — 

W. Roberts =: 2a -\- 2b -\- $c -{- 2,d -\- 3^, 
John Smith ^= la -\- ^b -\- 2c -\- ^d -\- le, 
H. Thomas = 4a -\- ib -\- ic -\- 2d -{■ y, 

or, more clearly, by a series of points on the five 
scales for the five traits as in Figure 6. 



s"~- 


' " 


— ' 


■— 


R_^ 


-- 


.^i::::; 


-■ 


— 




■ T 






T 
j 

i 








R- 


, 


•----^ 


-^ 


^ 


"^ 


-s" 






T^, 


-. 


'n.. 


-^ 


s~~- 


"~" 






- 


7^ 


-^^sl 


.--''' 


''b 








_ 


T-^. 


■^^, 


a 






-— 






s 



Fig. 6. Three Individuals, R, S, and T, each measured in the case 
af Five Traits, a, <5, c, d, and e, as possessing i, 2, 3, 4, or 5 de- 
grees thereof. 

Over three thousand varieties are possible, but 
they need not all occur. For example, suppose 
that the amount of trait a that an individual pos- 
sessed was so related with the amounts of 3, c, d, 
and e that he possessed, that if he had 2a he 
would have also 2b, 2c, 2d, and 2e, while if he 
20 



COMBINATIONS OF TRAITS 

had 4a he must have 4<^, 4c, 4^, and 4^, and 
similarly for la, ^a, and ^a. Then the only varie- 
ties of individuals that could exist would be : — 

Some who were la -\- i^-\- ic-\-id -{- le, 
" « « 2a -\- 23 -[- 2C -{- 2d -\- 2e, 

and so on, five varieties in all, shown in Figure 
7. Or suppose that an individual having 5^ could 



3 


L 2 8 


4 


6 




Y ':' 


T 


f 


If 


1 






JL 




'{ ' 




— 






1 




X 




J 


! ' 




i 
J. 


w 




^ 1 

1 
I X 1 




— 

i 

J. 


f 



Fig. 7. 

never have less than 3 of d, c, d, and e. Then 

such individualities as — 

5^ + 2^ + 4^ + 3^+5^, 
5^ + 5^+ 1^ + 4^+3^, 

and the like could not exist. The kind of varie- 
ties that can exist will then express the relations, 
or, as they are commonly called, the correlations, 
between the amounts of the five traits, that is, 
21 



INDIMDUALITY 

the extent to which the amount of one trait 
possessed by an individual is bound up with the 
amount which he possesses of some other trait. 
This is as true for five hundred traits as for five, 
and for an infinite number of degrees of each as 
for five degrees. What kind of individuals there 
will bey and what proportio7i there zvill be of each 
kindy is a residt of the distribution of individuals 
in single traits a?id of the corr£latio7is of the 
traits. To this fact we shall soon need to return. 
Confronted by the infinite variety of total hu- 
man natures, thinkers have hoped to find certain 
types, — the genius, the insane, the criminal, the 
defective, the artist, the man of affairs, and the 
like, — such that all, or at least many, individuals 
would belong under one or another of these types. 
A type represents some particular combination 
of amounts of the list of human traits. For ex- 
ample, suppose the list of traits to be ^, by c, dy 
and ey and the degrees of each to range from o 
to 10. Then 

(I) 2^ + 5^ + 5^ + 8^+10^, 
(II) loa + 2^ + 2^+1^+ o^, 
and (III) 4^ + 4^ + 4^ + 6^+5^, 
22 



COMBINATIONS OF TIL\ITS 

would be possible types. They are represented 
graphically in Figure 8. 

Now such individuals as : — 

(I) 1^ + 4^ + 5^ + 9^4- 9^» 
or (2) 3^ + 43 + 5^ + ^d-\- io€, 
or (3) 2^z + 5^ + 6<: + M -\- lo^, 

obviously vary little from Type I, but much from 
Type II or Type III. 

0123466789 10 





~^ 


:>i^----- '" 


1 1 

' i 




/ 






/ 
/ 
/ 




,/ ^^^ 



Fig. 8, Three Possible Types. 

Such individuals as — 

(4) loa -\- \b -\- 2c -\- od -\- 2/, 

(5) Skz + 2^ + 2^ + 2^ + \e, 

vary little from Type II, but much from Type I 
or III. Consider similarly such individuals as : — 

(6)4^2 + 5^ + 4^ + 6^+3^, 
(7)2^ + 4^ + 4^+5^+4/. 

23 



rxDrnDUALi-n' 

These facts are easily seen in Figure 9, which 
represents Types I, II. and III and individuals i 
to 7. 

The customary view has been that "t}'pes," or 
particular combinations of amounts of human 
traits, could be found so that any indi\-idual would 
be much like some t}'pe and much less like any 




Fig. c 



of the others. But no one has succeeded in find- 
ing such types, and the more clearly the sup- 
posed types are defined, the surer it becomes 
that intermediate conditions, equally like several 
of the types, exist in great numbers. Either new 
types have to be added until there are so many 
that one may as well let each indi\'idual be his 
24 



COMBES'ATIONS OF T"R_\ITS 



thi! he 



singU y :-: :: - . j^ 

tials, ace : _ : . . rs 

to emph2-5izc ::.r :: — 7 ^: ; r^- 

or the exact 'i:\::t :: ::.t.: :_ .:. 

By tiiis view the eflFort to 15 5 r 1 15 :: 2 

number of classes, as we i.. .: _ t 

classes " mammals,' r 1 1 : :_ t i 1 

"fishes," etc, is doorr.Ti :; :: ^ re - . r:- 

ence. The first di: :: -.:.- : r: ^ : r^rn 
the constituti ; r. :: \:.t :r.e :}7e, zian. Kis sec- 
ond duty \s, to learn each ir^di-aiual's variarirn 
from this common hMr::2r-::y. In theor}- i: means 
that man is mental-; , as ~ uch as physically, one 
25 



INDIVIDUALITY 

species. In practice it means that each individ- 
ual must be considered by himself. 

It certainly is the case that almost all of the 
detailed classifications of individuals in accord 
with the multiple-type theory are either useless 
or misleading. The commonest element in such 
classifications is the supposed principle of com- 
pensation or balance, whereby, for example, a 
*' quick but careless" type is contrasted with a 
*'slow but sure" type; or an "easy learning, 
quickly forgetting " type is contrasted with the 
slow learner who retains long ; or efficiency in 
thought, efficiency in action, and delicacy in sen- 
timent are supposed to be exclusive, each of the 
other two. Such types, presupposing relations of 
compensation between intrinsically desirable 
traits, are almost certainly illusory. 

All trustworthy studies so far made of the re- 
lations between the amounts of desirable single 
traits in the same individual agree in finding di- 
rect or "positive "relations between such traits. 
Having a large measure of one good quality in- 
creases the probability that one will have more 
than the average of any other good quality. He 
26 



COxMBINATIOxNS OF TRAITS 

who can learn better than the average through 
the eyes, tends to learn better than the average 
through the ears also ; he who can attend to one 
thing better than all other men, will be able to 
attend to many things at once or in rapid succes- 
sion better than most of them. Artistic ability, as 
in music, painting, or literary creation, goes ivith 
scientific ability and matter-of-fact wisdom. The 
best abstract thinker will be above the average in 
concrete thought also. The rapid workers are the 
more accurate. Intellectual ability and moral 
worth hang together. 

The correlations are, of course, not perfect. A 
large degree of superiority in one desirable trait 
may involve only a slight superiority in many 
others. And since the relations vary enormously 
amongst individuals, a person highly gifted in one 
respect will often, though not usually, be very in- 
ferior in others. 

The description which I have given of the va- 
rieties of total human nature doubtless seems to 
the reader to be far from clear. We have seen 
that millions upon millions of different conditions 
27 



IXDR'IDU.U.ITY 

of traits may exist ; that a large fraction of them 
do exist ; that they do not di\'ide naturally into dis- 
tinct types, but probably vary around one t\pe ; 
and that efficiency in one respect is positively cor- 
related with efficiency in others. We may add that, 
in general, the greater the \-ariation from the 
one common type of "the ordinary individual," 
the rarer it is. But we have failed to get a neat, 
handy summar)^ of the varieties of mankind. Their 
multitudinous complexity and richness remains to 
baffle the mind 

The fact is that a simple, orderly, tidy chart of 
human geography would be sure to be a false one, 
and that until inventories of the amounts of hun- 
dreds of traits are made for many indi\-iduals, we 
have no right to construct such a chart of any 
sort. Even by original nature, intellect and char- 
acter are enormously diversified, and diflferences 
in training add new complexities. For the pre- 
sent each individual's equation must be wTitten 
out as a result of a direct examination of his 
whole make-up, not inferred from a few symp- 
toms, plus a hasty general theor)^ of indi\'iduality. 



n 

THE CAUSES OF IXDrVTDUAL DIFFERENCES 

No competent thinker today doubts that ever}- 
slightest feature of ever)- man's individuality' has 
a natural cause. Men and women are always ^rh^t 
they are for some reason ; and the reason is scrr.e 
fact in the real world No mere chances, fairies, 
or demons impregnate a human mind with its pe- 
culiarities. Each comes as a result of natural law, 
and could be predicted by a perfect intelligence 
in possession of all the facts. 

Sex, remote ancestry or race, immediate an- 
cestry or family, growth or maturity-, and that 
total of forces operating on a man's nature which 
we call the environment, all contribute to explain 
why any one man is what he is. To review some 
of the main facts about the influence of these 
factors is the aim of this chapter. 

THE INFLLTNCE OF SEX 

WTiat little scientific study of the differences 
between the sexes in intellect and character there 
29 



INDIVIDUALITY 

has been, tends to minimize the traditional con- 
ception that they are two distinct kinds of beings, 
never understanding one another and requiring 
very different kinds of treatment. On the con- 
trary, it appears that if the primary sex charac- 
ters — the instincts directly related to courtship, 
love, child-bearing, and nursing — are left out of 
account, the average man differs from the aver- 
age woman far less than many men differ one 
from another. 

In no trait of those studied has a gap been 
found between the distributions for the two sexes. 
The upper extreme of one sex always overlaps 
the lower extreme of the other. Some girls like 
to fight better than some boys ; some men are 
fonder of babies than some women. 

The overlapping is, in most of the traits stud- 
ied, very great. For example, popular belief would 
perhaps select as impressive sex differences the 
greater originality, activity, independence, and 
frankness of the male, and the greater emotion- 
ality, interest in personal appearance, and reli- 
giousness of the female. These are indeed pro- 
bably among the largest sex differences. But, so 
30 



THE INFLUENCE OF SEX 

far as is known, the overlapping in these cases is 
approximately as shown in Figure lo. Nearly all 
women are more original than the least original 
man, and probably over a third of women are 
more original than the average man. Nearly all 
men are more religious than the least religious 
woman, and probably about a third are more re- 
ligious than the average woman. 




Fig. 10. 



In a Study by indirect methods, whose results 
therefore are somewhat insecure, Heymans and 
Wiersma found as the greatest difference be- 
tween men and women that in the relative 
strength of the interest in things and their me- 
chanisms (stronger in men) and the interest in 
persons and their feelings (stronger in women). 
The difference is a trifle greater than that shown 
in Figure ii. Other differences not so large are 
31 



INDIVIDUALITY 

that being a man tends"to make an individual 
more vigorous in movement, more athletic and 
noisy, more independent, less sensitive^to slight 
outside stimuli, less efficient in perceiving small 
details, more often color-blind, a trifle less quick 
to memorize, less shy and conscientious, lazier 
and fonder of games of skill, mental or bodily, 
less emotional, less eager for change, quicker in 
recovery from grief, and less impulsive. 




Fig. II. 

The prevailing overestimation of maleness and 
femaleness as determinants of intellect and char- 
acter is probably due to two causes. In the first 
place, literary presentations of the human nature 
of men and women have been concerned largely 
with men and women in courtship, love, and par- 
enthood. It is just in these affairs of life that the 
sexes do show the greatest mental differences. 

In the second place, outside of courtship, love, 
32 



THE INFLUENCE OF RACE 

and parenthood, the sexes have been most often 
compared in the persons of their most eminent 
representatives. Such a comparison is unfair for 
the sexes as wholes, because the male sex is the 
more variable, so that even though the average 
man is inferior to the average woman in a given 
trait, the best men in it may be above the best 
women. So in music and literature, although the 
experience of schools and life shows women in 
general to be not inferior to men, the greatest 
achievements have been by men. The greatest 
scientists, poets, painters, and musicians have 
been more frequently males for the same reason 
that idiots are more often males. 

Sex, then, though a real influence, is not so 
great an influence in making individuals differ as 
has been supposed. Many traits are practically 
uninfluenced by it. The variations within one 
sex are not very much less than the variations 
amongst men and women together. 

THE INFLUENCE OF RACE 

Differences in remote ancestry or race account 
for a very large percentage of the differences 
33 



\ 



INDIVIDUALITY 

found amongst men, if we consider both their 
direct effect upon original nature and their indi- 
rect effect through the differences in training 
which commonly parallel them. Even if we dis- 
regard the past and confine observation to the 
differences amongst living men, race directly and 
indirectly produces differences so great that 
government, business, industry, marriage, friend- 
ship, and almost every other feature of human in- 
stinctive and civilized life have to take account 
of a man's race. 

But the effective differences between, say, the 
modern European, Chinese, and Negro are, in the 
first place, in part physical. It is not the Negro's 
soul but his body that is despised by many of 
those who despise him. The European looks like 
a foreign devil to the Chinese. The white man 
does not boast of his intelligence or virtue, but 
thanks God that at all events he is a white man. 

In the second place, clothes, coiffure, physical 
habits, and all the showy but trivial expressions 
of intellect and character in customs, ceremonies, 
and manners, give an impression of fundamental 
unlikeness that is quite out of proportion to the 
34 



THE INFLUENCE OF RACE 

real facts. The Quakers were outlawed largely 
because they kept their hats on ! A Chinese 
must be a queer beast, since he wears a pig-tail ! 
The Hottentot, poor creature, knows no better 
than to go naked ! 

For rational control, it is necessary to reach 
the real differences in intellect and character, 
unmagnified and undistorted. Further, it is de- 
sirable to separate off sharply the direct effect 
of racial differences upon original natures from 
their indirect effect through the different civili- 
zations or cultures which happen to accompany 
them. The influence of the latter belongs prop- 
erly under the influence of differences in the en- 
vironment, and will be omitted from considera- 
tion here. 

If the original mental natures of a hundred 
Negroes, Chinese, Igorots, and Jews were given 
similar bodily externals and brought up under 
the same environment, would they differ more 
than would a hundred, all Negroes or all Chin- 
ese ; and if so, how much more and in what ways.^ 
That is the present question. 

It is a pity that so important a question, by 
35 



INDIMDUALITY 

the answer to which the treatment of the so- 
called lower by the so-called higher races and 
the treatment of the latter by one another should 
be largely guided, can be only so imperfectly an- 
swered. It is literally true that we know how to 
breed and train plants far better than we know 
how to breed and train men for important traits 
of human nature. Of the detailed significance of 
the heredity belonging to each of the races and 
sub-races of men, little or nothing is known. I 
can only illustrate the attitude which a student 
of the topic should take and the general direc- 
tion in which the truth may be expected to lie. 
This will be done in the case of racial differences 
in general intellect. 

The first fact to note is that racial differences 
in original nature are not mere m}1:hs. For ex- 
ample, the colored pupils in the public high 
schools of New York City represent probably at 
least as good a selection intellectually from the 
offspring of Negroes and Negro-white crosses 
as do the white pupils from the offspring of pure 
white matings. Any superiority of the white to 
the colored pupils is almost certainly equaled 

36 



THE INFLUENCE OF R.\CE 

bvthe difference between t'.t -.vhitr -^ce 
Negro race. Yet the wb i: e ." - 7 - - - ^:t t - 
bly superior in scholarship, as shown i:: F : . 



:ra- 

12. 





I 








1 

1 
1 
1 






' 1 
1 

1 




- - - 






























^ ^ m 


^ . • 




1 


1 




« 










1 



20 

F:g. ; 



40 



60 



80 



100 



The differences in the environmen: ^: r :: seem 
at all adequate to account for the su^^e: ::::>• of 

37 



INDIVIDUALITY 

the whites. To take the one other case of meas- 
urements of the intellectual capacities of different 
races, Woodworth found that the best of the 
Negritos and reputed Pygmies just reached the 
average European in a simple test of practical 
intellect. 

The second fact to note is that the differences 
in intellect due to race, though real, are in gen- 
eral small. In the test by Professor Woodworth, 
just mentioned, only small differences were found 
between the Europeans and Indians, Eskimos, 
Ainus, Filipinos, and Singhalese. 

This may seem irreconcilable with the testi- 
mony given by the history and present status of 
races. If racial achievement were a fair measure 
of intellect, there would be a real contradiction. 
But achievement is a measure of ability only if 
conditions are equal. Two important conditions 
are the size of the racial group and its communi- 
cation with other races. A small race, though of 
equal average intellect with a larger race, has 
not so great a probability of generating an ex- 
treme variation, — a man of extraordinary ability, 
whose discoveries and practices uplift all who can 

38 



THE INFLUENCE OF NEAR ANCESTRY 

learn or imitate them. An isolated race in the 
same way loses the means of progress which 
come from borrowed ideas and practices. 

The third fact of importance is the overlap- 
ping. The superiority of a race does not mean 
the superiority of all its members to all those of 
the other race. That never happens; and ordi- 
narily the two distributions overlap for nine 
tenths of their extent along the scale. Even when 
the average of one race is, say, ten /^?'^^;2/ more 
gifted than the average of another, there will still 
be about nine out of ten of the inferior race who 
will surpass the worst representative of the su- 
perior race, and about four out of ten who will 
surpass the average man of the superior race. 
There is, then, hardly a more stupid way of get- 
ting individuals of superior original nature than 
to choose them by race. The variation of original 
individuality within any one race is too wide. 

THE INFLUENCE OF NEAR ANCESTRY 

Within any one of the larger groups that we 
call races there are many strains or ''lines," so 
that, as every one sees in the case of physical 
39 



INDIVIDUALITY 

traits, individuals of the same sex, race, and train- 
ing still differ widely. The same is true of traits 
of intellect and character. In them also individ- 
uals of the same sex and race differ in wavs and 
to degrees that differences in training cannot 
account for. As will be shown later, the exact 
dividing line between the influence of inheritance 
and the influence of environment or training is 
subject to dispute, but every one who has inves- 
tigated the facts carefully admits that the former 
has some influence. Mental and moral inherit- 
ance from near ancestry is a fact. 

A human being develops from, and in his ori- 
ginal nature isy an ovum, or germ-cell from the 
mother, fused with a sperm, or germ-cell from 
the father. A germ-cell from any parent is always 
one of many produced by that parent. These 
vary amongst themselves, so that the possible 
heredity from any one parent is far wider and 
richer than his own nature. A man gives to his 
children, not one thing, himself, but his manifold 
germs. With respect to any trait, the germs from 
one parent vary, however, much less than do the 
germs from all the parents in that race. 
40 



THE INFLUENCE OF NEAR ANCESTRY 

Let us call that element or constituent of a 
germ which tends to produce, in the individual 
who develops from it, a given feature of intellect 
or character, that feature's determiner. Then the 
fact just mentioned may be stated in this form : 
Germs from the same individual differ in their 
determiners ; germs from different individuals 
of the same race differ still more ; germs from 
individuals of different races, still more. 

Inheritance is at bottom a matter of the rela- 
tions of germs one to another. A parent resem- 
bles his offspring because the germ that produced 
him produced also the germs that produce them. 
He differs from his offspring and they differ 
among themselves for the same reason. The 
difference is due to the fact that germs produced 
by one germ vary. The likeness is due to the 
fact that they vary less than germs produced by 
many. 

Our inferences about heredity, however, have to 
be made from the resemblances and differences 
of the individuals who develop from the germs. 
The study of mental and moral heredity is thus 
the study of the greater resemblance or less 
41 



INDIVIDUALITY 

difference of related than of unrelated individ- 
uals. 

The measurements of the influence of near an- 
cestry upon individuality have naturally taken 
the form of measurements of the greater resem- 
blances of related individuals, rather than of 
the greater differences of unrelated individuals. 
Samples of the results obtained are the follow- 
ing: Call the average likeness of two persons 
of the same sex and race, but not near kin, zero. 
Call perfect similarity i. Then the resemblance 
of father to son in general intellect and also in 
moral worth is, according to Woods,^ about .4. 
The resemblance of brother to brother or sister 
in various mental traits is, according to Pearson, 
about .5. The resemblance of twins in ability to 
add and multiply, in finding the misspelled words 
in a passage, and in other mental tests is about .8. 

It would be too long a task to rehearse the 
evidence from which it appears that these resem- 
blances are due only slightly to resemblances in 
home training. Sample arguments are the follow- 

1 Allowance being made for certain facts not taken account 
of by Professor Woods himself. 

42 



THE INFLUENCE OF NEAR ANCESTRY 

ing: Twins are found to grow no more alike 
from nine to fourteen, in spite of the fact that 
any influence home training may have upon abil- 
ity to add, multiply, and the like should be far 
greater after so much longer action. They are 
found to be as much alike in finding misspelled 
words or giving the opposites of words as in add- 
ing or multiplying, though, presumably, home 
training should count more in the latter. Also 
the home training of twins does not seem to be 
very much more constant than that of two chil- 
dren of the same family, two or three years apart 
in age ; but the resemblance is twice as great. 

On the whole, intellectual and moral individu- 
ality seems to be determined to a very large ex- 
tent in the germs. If all human beings were given 
exactly the same training, subjected to exactly 
the same influences from the time of their con- 
ception, they would still differ widely. Hygiene, 
medicine, education, and all social forces have to 
reckon with original differences in men. Their 
aims, means, and methods must be adapted to fit 
not one nature, but many. 



43 



INDIVIDUALITY 

THE INFLUENCE OF EDUCATION 

The intellect and character given to an indi- 
vidual by sex, race, and near ancestry furnish 
the starting point for the general education 
which he gets from the fortunes of life and the 
special education which society prescribes for 
his and its own good. Sometimes these environ- 
mental forces bring him into conformity with 
others, rounding off the corners of his individual- 
ity to make it more like the type : in other cases 
the environment increases initial differences and 
adds to the total variety of human nature. To 
what extent the differences that come to exist 
amongst individuals are to be attributed to dif- 
ferences in their nurture, is known uncertainly, 
if at all. I shall attempt only to show the atti- 
tude a thinker must take toward the general 
question. 

There is no doubt that differences in home, 
school, books, friends, political status, and the 
like, may cause differences in the intellect and 
character which a man comes to possess, — in his 
eventual nature. Two identical original natures, 
44 



THE INFLUENCE OF EDUCATION 

if brought up in 1900 b. c. and 1900 a. d., or in 
Berlin and Pekin, would result in very different 
eventual natures. The Japanese of to-day are 
probably almost or quite identical, in original 
nature, with their great-grandfathers. All or 
nearly all of the differences between the two 
groups are attributable to differences in environ- 
ment. Any man's individuality is determined in 
large measure by his language, occupation, reli- 
gion, customs, and ideas. These again are deter- 
mined in large measure by his nurture. 

But the influence of the environment is sub- 
ject to two important limitations. Any environ- 
mental force has far less effect if it is avoidable. 
If a boy born in China can, if his nature suffi- 
ciently impels, go to a modern school, the influ- 
ence of the old-fashioned Chinese schools, even 
though they outnumber the modern schools a 
hundred to one, is far less than if they are the 
unavoidable form of education. 

If the custom of slavery is universal, men who 
are by original nature just and humane will in- 
humanly deprive the babies born in slavery of 
common human rights. But if the custom is called 
45 



INDIVIDUALITY 

in question at all, so that the force of society's 
approval of it is avoidable, — if a man can flee in 
fact or in thought to the company of those who 
distrust slavery, — then the effective force of 
that custom is enormously weakened. A man 
may, in respect to it, determine his eventual na- 
ture by his original nature. 

Similarly, before any alcoholic beverages were 
known, no man, however intemperate his origi- 
nal nature, could be a dipsomaniac. But, once 
total abstinence is avoidable, the determination 
of a man's behavior toward liquor may be made 
largely by his original nature. He may shut his 
ears to all tales of the misery caused by drink, 
may not attend to any of the facts which would 
facilitate abstinence, may respond to all restrain- 
ing forces by neglect, and seek out, as a result 
of the inner impulsion of his inborn make-up, 
the rare opportunities for alcoholic intoxication. 

The second limitation to any environmental 
force is that it acts differentially, the result 
being determined by the original nature acted 
upon as well as by the force itself. Even in 
those who do not avoid it, it has all degrees 

46 



THE INFLUENCE OF EDUCATION 

of welcome. Being slaves does not make all 
men slavish, much less equally slavish. Evil 
communications may ennoble the manners of 
some men. "The environmental stimulus ade- 
quate to arouse a certain power or ideal or 
habit in one man may be hopelessly inadequate 
to do so in another. Washing bottles in a drug- 
shop was, if a common story is true, adequate 
to decide Faraday's career ; and the voyage on 
the Beagle is reputed to have made Darwin a 
naturalist for life. But if all the youth of the 
land were put to work in drug-shops and later 
sent on scientific expeditions, the result would 
not be a million Faradays and Darwins, or even 
a million chemists and naturalists. All that one 
man may need to be free is a vote ; but even a 
long education in self-direction may be inade- 
quate for another. Being told a few words suf- 
fices to secure the habit of reading in one child, 
while the child beside him remains illiterate after 
two years of careful tuition. The amount of 
stimulus required in some cases is so infinitesi- 
mal that the power seems to spring absolutely 
from the man himself. In other men no agency 
47 



INDIVIDUALITY 

is found potent enough to arouse a trace of the 

desired result." 

As a result of these limitations, it is hard to 
find differences between one and another man 
of the same era and general social condition that 
are clearly due to dififerences in training. The 
great scholar is not made by attendance at a 
university ; rather his own nature made him 
seek that influence scorned by so many others. 
Many a drunkard remains so in spite of fewer 
temptations. Saloons being inaccessible, he 
drinks at home ; whiskey being debarred, he 
takes to "bitters" or patent medicines; one 
suspects that if alcohol did not exist, he would 
soon discover cocaine. Each nature in some 
measure selects its own environment, and each 
nature may get from an environment a different 
influence, so that the relative achievements of, 
say, the boys who this year begin school in 
America, will probably be more closely parallel 
to their relative original talents and interests 
than to their relative advantages in home and 
school environment. 



Ill 

THE SIGNIFICANCE OF INDIVIDUAL DIF- 
FERENCES 

We have seen that individuals differ in what- 
ever trait of intellect or character is examined. 
The variations from the ordinary, common, or 
typical man range continuously to such extreme 
conditions as appear in the idiot and the genius, 
or Nero and Lincoln. But the great majority 
cluster somewhat closely around the " average 
man." Clear and useful divisions into separate 
classes are impossible with respect to either the 
amount of some single trait or the total consti- 
tution of the mind. 

The differences that characterize men of the 
same time, country, and social status are largely 
original, determined directly by the germs from 
which the individual develops, and so indirectly 
by the ancestry from which he springs. Each 
original nature has so great power of selecting 
and avoiding the forces of social and educational 
49 



INDIVIDUALITY 

environment that the fundamental powers, in- 
terests, and ideals of such men are largely de- 
termined before they are born. Over the par- 
ticular connections with ideas which we call 
knowledge, and the particular connections with 
acts which we call skill, training has greater 
power; and, of course, unavoidable differences 
in training, such as go with differences between 
1700 and 1900, England and China, slave and 
free, are far more potent. 

All the sciences and arts of controlling hu- 
man nature must accept the original variety of 
human nature as a condition for thought and 
action. The economist must not consider men 
as all seeking with steadfast rationality to buy as 
cheap and sell as dear as they can. The religious 
worker should not hope to arouse uniformly the 
same sense of guilt and longing for justification 
to which he and his intimates testify. The 
scholar may as well expect all men to be pas- 
sionately eager to use the left rather than the 
right hand, as expect them to prefer linguistic 
or mathematical erudition to ignorance. The 
teacher who has not learned by ordinary experi- 
50 



SIGNIFICANCE OF INDIVIDUALITY 

ence that each child is to some extent a separate 
problem, demanding for his best interest an edu- 
cational theory and practice to fit hun, should 
learn it once for all from psychological theory. 
/ Specialization of schools is needed not only to 
nt pupils for special professions, arts, trades, and 
the like, but also to fit the schools to original 
differences in the pupils. Specialization of in- 
struction for different pupils within one class is 
needed as well as specialization of the curriculum 
for different classes. Since human nature does 
not fall into sharply defined groups, we can lit- 
erally never be sure of having a dozen pupils 
who need to be treated exactly alike. ■ 

All thought and action will be more reason- 
able and humane if we look for variety in men 
and examine each nature in a scientific spirit to 
learn what it really is, instead of idly judging it 
by some customary superstition. For example, 
the most pitiful waste and unreason in human 
affairs is behavior whereby one makes himself 
suffer to secure for another a good which is to 
the other a nuisance or a pain. A parent who 
sacrifices his own joys to protect his children 
51 



INDIVIDUALITY 

against the healthy, beloved, and noble struggles 
of life; a philanthropist who lessens his own 
welfare to teach factory-workers refinements, 
knowledge of which can only embitter their in- 
ability to secure them ; a religion that spends 
life in stimulating the fears and worries of men 
whom fear and worry will never lead to right 
living, but only to more worry and fear, — in 
such gratuitous miseries, false diagnosis of hu- 
man hearts is prolific. 

The most necessary elements in the life of 
reason and justice are, first, an awareness of 
what individual human natures really are and 
really want ; and then an appreciation of the rela- 
tive worth of the myriads of wants thus revealed. 
This valuation of human wants, in turn, is im- 
proved chiefly by knowing what they are and how 
each competes or cooperates with all the others. 
Only in proportion as such a science of the 
nature and behavior of individual men exists 
can man know what his duty is or know how to 
doit. 



OUTLINE 

I. THE NATURE OF INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES 

1. Man's life a double series i 

2. Men differ widely i 

3. Common traits and individual differences ... 2 

4. The complexity of single mental traits .... 3 

5. Individuals differ in quality and quantity of traits 4 

6. Qualitative differences really differences of degree 5 

7. A man's nature is a compound of his several abilities 5 

INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES IN SINGLE TRAITS 

1. Variation can be found in every human trait . . 6 

2. The older psychology neglected individual differ- 

ences 7 

3. Individual differences are found at every stage of life 7 

4. Stature of American boys as an example ... 8 

5. The distribution of a trait along a scale ... 10 

6. An accurate method of determining common ten- 

dency and individual variation 11 

7. Casual observation notes extreme, odd, exciting, 

and desired facts 11 

8. Two important facts at variance with common 

opinion 12 

9. Variations in a single trait are usually continuous 13 
10. Variations usually cluster around only one type . 13 

II. Individual ability best expressed by numerical 

amounts . 13 

12. The great frequency of mediocrity and its practical 

implications 16 

53 



OUTLINE 

13. Wide and continuous variations call for versatile 

methods of treatment 18 

14. The need for both absolute and relative measures 

of power 18 

INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES IN COMBINATIONS 
OF TRAITS 

1. The possible varieties of men are practically infinite 19 

2. The futility of the multiple-type theory .... 22 

3. There is a single type or as many types as 

individuals 25 

4. The supposed principle of compensation in types 

is discredited 26 

5. A large amount of one desirable trait increases 

probability of same in another 26 

6. A description of total human nature is unavoidably 

complex 27 

II. THE CAUSES OF INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES 

1. Human peculiarities are a result of natural laws 29 

2. Sex, race, family, maturity, and environment con- 

tribute 29 

THE INFLUENCE OF SEX 

1. Scientific study minimizes traditional conceptions 

of sex differences 29 

2. The upper extreme of one sex greatly overlaps the 

lower extreme of the other 30 

3. Probably a third of one sex are superior to the 

average of the other in any given trait . . .31 

4. Specific differences between men and women . ,31 

54 



OUTLINE 

5. Two causes of the popular overestimation of sex 

differences 32 

6. Literary presentations emphasize the greatest sex 

differences 32 

7. Comparisons of eminent sex representatives dis- 

regard greater variability of the male . . . .32 

THE INFLUENCE OF RACE 

1. Remote ancestry explains a large percentage of 

differences 33 

2. Effective racial differences are in part physical . 34 

3. Customs, ceremonies, and manners increase the 

sense of racial difference • • • 35 

4. Rational control requires a direct study of real 

differences in intellect and character • . • • 35 

5. Little is known of the detailed significance of racial 

heredity 36 

6. Racial differences in original nature are not mere 

myths 36 

7. Differences in intellect due to race are generally small 38 

8. The superiority of a race does not imply the supe- 

riority of all its members 39 

THE INFLUENCE OF FAMILY 

1. Mental and moral inheritance from near ancestry 

is a fact 39 

2. The possible heredity from a parent is far wider 

than his own nature 40 

3. There is greater resemblance of related than of 

unrelated individuals 41 

4. The degrees of resemblance between members of 

the same family 42 

55 



OUTLINE 

5. These resemblances are due only slightly to similar 

home training 42 

6. Hygiene, education, and social forces must reckon 

with original differences in men 43 

THE INFLUENCE OF EDUCATION 

1. Nurture sometimes restricts and sometimes em- 

phasizes individual qualities] 44 

2. Many differences in groups are attributable to 

varying environment 44 

3. Any environmental force has less effect if it is 

avoidable 45 

4. Environmental forces act differentially, original 

nature being a selective agent 46 

III. THE SIGNIFICANCE OF INDIVIDUAL 
DIFFERENCES 

1. The way in which individuals differ 49 

2. The differences that characterize men are largely 

original 49 

3. Social control must accept human variation as a 

condition 50 

4. The need to specialize schools and instruction . .51 

5. False views of human nature lead to waste . . .51 

6. The valuation of human wants rests on a true view 

of human nature 52 



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